Dreams
by FansieFace
Summary: His dream is finally coming true. Jack is finally going to Santa Fe. So why does it feel bad that he's doing it?


He should be happy. His dream was coming true. He should have a huge smile on his face, his heart should be filled with joy, it should feel like he could take off into flight at any moment. It should not feel like he was being torn in two. It should not feel like his heart was shrinking, deflating more and more the farther he got from New York. He should be happy. He should not be feeling like he's dying slowly. He should not feel like his dream is a flop. Dreams come true should feel good, not bad. Not worse than he felt betraying the trust of his boys. His own words, things he had said to his own friends, came back to him twisted. Showing him he was wrong to leave. He rests his head against the window of the train car. This is not how he's supposed to feel. Isn't Santa Fe all he ever wanted? Isn't this what he wants? He remembers back to his dreaming, back to the mornings spent describing his hopes to his friend.

"Soon ya friends are more like family, an' dey's beggin' you ta stay." The words drift through his brain, the phrase he had used for so long to describe what it would be like to live in Santa Fe. He feels tears begin to press at the back of his eyes. If this is his dream, why does it hurt so bad to have come true? He watches as the lights of the city fade more and more, until they're barely a speck of yellow in the dark. He sighs and closes his eyes. This is supposed to feel good. But it feels awful. He finds himself drifting into an uneasy sleep, a remembrance of so many things he's said that should make him feel better about leaving, but instead make him feel even more torn, even more dead inside. When his eyes open with the light of the rising sun, the train is still chugging steadily along. Now, instead of cities or complete blackness, he sees fields of green.

"Plantin' crops, splittin' rails, swappin' tales around a fire, 'cept for Sunday when ya lie around all day." These words also drift back, foggy and covered over in the memory of the small, hopeful smile his talks gave his best friend. He imagines he can hear all the way back to New York, to the circulation bell that will be ringing now with the break of dawn, to the shouts that will be ringing out over the lodging house, to the creaking of dorm doors opening and the bickering that was always present in the mornings. On the train it is eerily silent, as if he was totally alone, even though he can see other passengers beginning to wake up. He sees a flash of brown curls as a young girl sits up across from him.

"Wherever you go, I'm there right by your side." He feels a headache start as pressure builds behind his eyes again. She didn't even know he was gone yet. She didn't rise with the dawn, and she wouldn't find his drawing until much later. It was hidden so carefully. He sighed. This was wrong. This was not how dreams felt.

"Soon ya friends are more like family, an' dey's beggin' you ta stay." Hadn't his friends begged him to stay? Didn't he call them his brothers? Wasn't he more of a father to then they they'd ever had? Weren't they a family all their own?

"Plantin' crops, splittin' rails, swappin' tales around a fire, 'cept for Sunday when ya lie around all day." Maybe he didn't plant crops or split rails or swap tales around a fire, or lie around all day on Sunday, but didn't he hawk headlines? Didn't he walk for miles, hours a day? Didn't he talk about anything and everything with his boys around their beat up old poker table as they played with mismatched cards? And didn't he get to do whatever he wanted every Sunday morning? Didn't he get to swim in the harbor if it was hot, or stay in bed if it was cold?

"Wherever you go, I'm there right by your side."

"For sure?"

"For sure." He had given the impression he was done with his dream. Instead, he had scrimped and saved until he could buy a ticket. She had promised him, and he had broken a promise he hadn't meant from the start.

"Dey don't much matter if you ain't with me." At least, he hadn't thought he'd meant it.

"Don't you know dat we'se a family? Would I let ya down? No way." But he had let them down. He had left without telling them, without a single word of goodbye. He looks out the window again as the train slows. The sign doesn't say Santa Fe, but he doesn't care. He picks up his small bag and hurries off the train, he wait for the next train to New York to pull up, and he hops it. He doesn't buy a ticket, he waits until it's leaving and runs along the side that can't be seen from the station and pulls himself into a freight car. He's going home, to his real family and his new dream, and he's missed a whole day of work, probably two by the time he gets there. He smiles as he leans back on the rough floor of the car, his bag under his head. This feels right, this feels good. He feels happy, like he could take off into flight at any moment. His heart is full of joy. Because Jack Kelly is going home, to where he belongs, to Crutchie and Davey and Les and Romeo and Specs and Knobs and Buttons and Finch and Henry and Albert and Elmer and JoJo. He's going to Katherine. And that is enough to fulfill his dreams and hopes. That is enough to make him happy.

 **Fourteen hours in a car can drive a person crazy. Especially when fourteen stretches into roughly seventeen. And when your music is too loud if you can hear it over the political talk show on the radio. So when my muses saw a field of potatoes, this idea sort of started, then fermented and developed until I could get home and write it. And developed some more as I was writing.**


End file.
